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Jakarta Post

Love imagined at Padepokan Apel Watoe

An ongoing exhibition by 20 artists in the vicinity of Borobudur Temple shows how venues in the region are finding their own way to develop and display art.

Carla Bianpoen (The Jakarta Post)
Magelang
Wed, June 21, 2017

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Love imagined at Padepokan Apel Watoe Life is more beautiful by Nurfu Ad (JP/Carla Bianpoen)

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wenty artists from Bandung, Bali, Jakarta, Magelang, Semarang, Yogyakarta and Wonosobo are taking part in an exhibition entitled “Cinta” (Love), which runs until June 23 at Padepokan Apel Watoe in the vicinity of Borobudur temple.

Started as “Tuksongo Visual Arts House” in 2011, a studio and venue to show works by artist and former art journalist Deddy Paw, the place developed into a “Padepokan,” an activity center, in 2015, where besides visual arts, dance, yoga, Pilates and culinary activities blend to elevate the lives of the people and their communities.

Deddy explained that the exhibition was conceived out of concern for the dismal situation in the country, and out of his and his friends’ belief that art and love could intervene. For an artist who has used the apple as his metaphor for love, the initiative for this exhibition is hardly a surprise.

It was moreover a welcome strategy of exchange between artists from the vicinity of the Borobudur Temple and artists from other cities in the country — some older artists who may have passed their heyday, other senior artists who are still actively involved in the arts scene and younger artists who are still at the center of attention.

The exhibition presents a representative group of artists, whose interpretation of love is expressed through various mediums, including oil and acrylic paint, ink, pencil, bronze, stainless steel and clay and installations.

Artists like Neneng Sia Ferrier, 64, who has exhibited in exhibitions of Asian biennales, and Antonius Kho, a 59-year-old artist cum activist who engages in artistic exchanges between Indonesia and the rest of the world, add luster to this exhibition in the expanding gallery called the Tuksongo Visual Art House within the complex of Padepokan Apel Watoe in the village of Ganjuran.

Neneng’s two-panel 70 meter by 500 m canvas entitled Lotus Purity features lotus flowers and buds set as an installation radiating a soft light that seems to impersonate the love that she wanted to spread, while Antonius Kho’s 70 centimeter by 60 cm mixed media painting, Looking to the Future, is populated with images of dreamlike faces.

Of a different kind is a work by 55-year-old sculptor Hedy Hariyanto who expresses love with a gender-infused touch as seen in the sculpture Pasangan (Couple) made with fiberglass and car paint, while others like Nyoman Sujana Kenyem, 45, feature love as a phenomenon of nature in Cinta Kasih Alam (Nature’s Love).

Deddy, 54, takes a special place in the exhibition both as organizer and artist whose favorite metaphor for love has been the apple since his early days as an artist. 

Deddy Paw's installation(JP/Carla Bianpoen)

His metaphorical apples in various mediums and understandings have uniquely traversed trends, philosophies, beliefs and countries and are quite a phenomenon in the world of art today.

He has of course benefited from his exceptional background as a longtime arts editor and journalist for the Media Indonesia newspaper in Jakarta. His works have absorbed many of the teachings of Buddhism, blending with actual issues of general concern.

For this exhibition, he, among others, collaborated with the sculptor Noor Ibrahim, 51, to present a life-size sculpture titled Patriot. Giving new meaning to the usual understanding of defending the country, a string of apples of love replaces the usual bullets. In doing so, the sturdy figure of the fighter is transformed into a patriot of love. This sculpture may well encompass the idea for this exhibition: to bring love amidst violence. But the installation Syria is Burning by 24-year-old Egyptian artist Nahla Ali from Cairo who studies at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), is a reminder that violence and war are raging across borders. 

Syria is Burning by Nahla Ali(JP/Carla Bianpoen)

An interesting feature in the show is the use of the jati teak leaf in a painting by Nurfu Ad, a 42-year-old painter who lives and works in the vicinity of the Borobudur Temple. Jati is a hard, heavy, durable yellowish-brown kind of wood that, according to the artist, is native to this region.

True to his roots, he likes to feature the jati leaf as metaphor for his artistic expressions on canvas. His canvas entitled Life is More Beautiful presents multiple jati leaves in various colors, to be understood as “together we are strong” and also denoting the country’s motto of “Unity in diversity.”

Another painting features the face of a lady, which he entitled Inspirator, following the lady’s character of benevolence.

Back to the Glory by Cipto Purnomo(JP/Carla Bianpoen)

Back to the Glory is a painting by Cipto Purnomo, 34, also an artist from the area whose futuristic thoughts on canvas imagine sea and land traffic flying through the air the way airplanes do. 

Evolusi (Evolution) by Klowor Waldiyono(JP/Carla Bianpoen)

One can’t miss the delightful work of Klowor Waldiyono, a 49-year-old artist whose paintings have much of the French expressionistic Corneille of the post-war Cobra group. His painting, entitled Evolusi, features a baby chicken painted with strong lines and infused with energy, an imagining of chasing something in its rise into new life. 

Other participating artists include Sigit Santoso, Hatmojo, Ismanto Wahyudi, Ivan Sagita, Jati Wegig Munandar, P. Lanny Andriani, Putu Wahyu Widodo, Tintin S., Wahudi and Yasumi Ishii.

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CINTA, a group exhibition

May 23 to June 23

At Tuksongo Visual Arts House, Padepokan Apel Watoe in Borobudur, Magelang; 

apelwatoeborobudur@gmail.com;

Phone: +62 2933301214, 81327309999

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